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October 19, 2009

Joe And JT

Joe Sullivan has been building houses since he got out of high school. He poured everything he had into his company and proudly gave it his own name: JT Sullivan Custom Builders. Like so many other builders, Joe took a hard hit in the housing crisis. He's now facing the loss of his business. And that's what prompted Joe to write in. After he heard Dick talk with Eric Gaskins, who has lost his fashion design company Eric Gaskins Design, Joe realized that part of why this hurt so much is that his name and his business are so closely intertwined.

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Sokeel Park of the U.S.-based NGO Liberty in North Korea talks to host Dick Gordon about how young North Koreans use illegal cell phones to get outside information and how security has been tightened in the country.

Maha Mehanna lives in Gaza with her nephew Mohammed. They have access to basic supplies, but the closed border still means life has changed dramatically for them. Each month over the past year they have gained permission to cross the border into Israel to get medical treatment for Mohammed's rare immune disease. They've faced 6 hour long waits and even stray bullets while trying to cross, but for Maha those trips are like a holiday - her only chance to see life on the outside. Also in the show: A scientist is taken hostage in Panama

More than 25 people were killed in a series of coordinated attacks in the Pakistan city of Lahore last week. Faizaan Peerzada runs an art center in Lahore. On the evening of the day when the attacks took place, Faizaan drove through the city to the BBC studios to speak with Dick Gordon. Faizaan says he was willing to take the risk because his arts organization depends on international support.

Gordana Knezevic has been watching the news from Gaza closely. She knows what the people there are going through. Gordana was an editor for a daily newspaper in Sarajevo from 1988 to 1994. During the siege of Sarajevo in 1992, she and her colleagues continued to publish Oslobodjenje every day from the ruins of the newspaper's offices.

When Omar Deghayes was arrested in Pakistan a few months after 9/11, he had no idea he was beginning a nearly six-year imprisonment, most of it in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. As an educated English-speaking lawyer, Omar thought he just needed to explain that he was not a terrorist. Instead he experienced beatings, psychological and sexual abuse, threats of execution and was blinded in one eye. Like hundreds of others, Omar was ultimately released from the notorious detention camp. He was never charged with, or convicted of, anything. Omar is now part of a lawsuit being brought against the government in the U.K., for its complicity with the detentions in Guantanamo. Also, living in the play house.

With the dramatic rise in foreclosures, some people have gotten creative with how they buy and sell their homes. Sherry Crosslin and Jerry Stussman took a novel route: They swapped houses. Also in this episode: a listener story of a false kidnapping.

More from Some Good News [10.19.09]

Business

Lisa Snell was laid off from her graphic design and layout job at a small newspaper last year. Lisa thought the owners would call her begging her to come back, but instead they called her with an offer: to buy the paper.